It occupies a commanding site on a bank midway between the
river Conon and a range of picturesque rocks. This bank extends for
miles, sloping in successive terraces, all richly wooded or
cultivated, and commanding a magnificent view that terminates with
the Moray Firth." ["The Seaforth Papers," in the "North British
Review," 1863, by Robert Carruthers, LL.D.]
The remarkable prediction of the extinction of this highly
distinguished and ancient family is so well known that it need not
be recapitulated here, and its literal fulfilment is one of the
most curious instances of the kind on record. There is no doubt
that the "prophecy" was widely known throughout the Highlands
generations before it was fulfilled. Lockhart, in his "Life of
Sir Walter Scott," says that "it connected the fall of the house of
Seaforth not only with the appearance of a deaf 'Cabarfeidh,'
but with the contemporaneous appearance of various different
physical misfortunes in several of the other Highland chiefs, all
of which are said to have actually occurred within the memory of
the generation that has not yet passed away. Mr Morrit can testify
thus far, that he heard the prophecy quoted in the Highlands at a
time when Lord Seaforth had two sons alive, and in good health,
and that it certainly was not made after the event," and then he
proceeds to say that Scott and Sir Humphrey Davy were most certainly
convinced of its truth, as also many others who had watched the
latter days of Seaforth in the light of those wonderful predictions.
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